Household Chemicals, Endometriosis & Fibroids

Holy Hormones Journal: Hello, readers – I am so glad to see you are still here. Sometimes a writer has to take a moment to regroup and rest the brain and the fingers that do all the walking! I anticipated that my blog numbers would be way down in my silence….. however, they held steady over the last week or so – and for that I am truly grateful that you find the information that I blog about to be important to your health. Because it is.

I hear from so many of you who are asking questions about your menstrual health – specifically about hormone imbalance. I posted a blog about hormone imbalance and anxiety a few years back, and then reposted it a couple of years ago – and since then have had over 700 comments. I hesitate to put the link in here but – this important information to know. Here is another blog post on hormone imbalance – a silent epidemic.

Why am I sharing this? Because many of you do not realize that we are all surrounded by what are known as endocrine disruptors that are fueling the fire for hormone imbalance. Most of those endocrine disruptors are known as xenoestrogens found in, household cleaning supplies, makeup and shampoo – sunscreen, laundry dryer sheets. and most importantly plastics. And then add synthetic hormone birth control to that – and we are nothing more than hormone soup.

Hormones are the chemical messengers sent to every cell in the body. If the message is scrambled it ricochets from there.

And now a study has been done…. so typical – first create the problem – then do a study on the problems that the problem created – right? All of that spells profit for the corporations for the rise in medical costs while our health is failing. If we do not protect our health now – the health of our children and their children will be even more at risk. All of these chemicals have been found in the umbilical cord – being pumped right into the fetus. Just like gas into a car.

Anyone use Febreze? That is a very dangerous chemical – sprayed right into the rug to reduce odors where our babies are crawling and playing.
BTW – click on CNN to view the video.

Common chemicals linked to endometriosis, fibroids — and healthcare costs
By Carina Storrs, Special to CNN
March 22, 2016

Hormone-disrupting chemicals are everywhere — in plastics, pesticides and makeup — and two of them, phthalates and DDE, have been particularly strongly linked with common female reproductive conditions, such as fibroids.

In a new study, researchers estimate that the problems caused by these two chemicals alone could cost the European Union at least 1.41 billion euros a year, the U.S. equivalent of about $1.58 billion.

A panel of experts previously estimated the health cost of a range of endocrine-disrupting chemicals — of which bisphenol-A, or BPA, is probably the most infamous — based on a slew of conditions they have been associated with, including obesity, IQ loss and male infertility.

The economic toll attributed to the chemicals in that analysis was 157 billion euros, or $177 billion.

For the current study, the researchers turned their attention toward fibroids and endometriosis, two common conditions that affect an estimated 70% of women and are leading causes of female infertility.

The researchers looked at studies of many different endocrine-disrupting chemicals and determined that the strongest evidence, albeit still from only a handful of studies, implicated a role for DDE, or diphenyldichloroethene, and phthalates in fibroids and endometriosis, respectively.

“There are substantial human and toxicological studies (in mice and other lab animals) that suggest that exposure to these endocrine-disrupting chemicals, many of which are increasing in use, are contributing to female reproductive conditions,” said Dr. Leonardo Trasande, associate professor of pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine.

DDE is a breakdown product of the insecticide DDT that, although banned in the United States in 1972 and in Europe starting in the 1970s, still lingers in the environment and enters our body through food. The main exposure to phthalates is through eating food and drink stored in plastic containers that have phthalates.

Trasande and his colleagues determined that 56,700 cases of fibroids among women in Europe were probably due to DDE exposure, and 145,000 cases of endometriosis were probably caused by phthalates. The researchers arrived at these estimates through studies that looked at typical DDE exposures in women of reproductive age in Europe and the association between DDE levels in the blood and fibroid diagnoses.

In a similar way, they relied on a study that linked higher phthalate levels in women who had been diagnosed with endometriosis compared to healthy women.